The Military-Industrial-Think
Tank ComplexCorporate Think Tanks and the
Doctrine of Aggressive Militarism

The aggressive first-strike military strategy now animating U.S. policy
toward Iraq was developed during the 1990s by a network of corporate-backed
conservative think tanks.

Each major element of the Bush administration's national security strategy
-- from the doctrines of preemptive strikes and "regime change" in Iraq,
to its aggressive nuclear posture and commitment to deploying a Star Wars-style
missile defense system -- was developed and refined before the Bush administration
took office, at corporate-backed conservative think tanks like the Center
for Security Policy, the National Institute for Public Policy and the
Project for a New American Century.

Unilateralist ideologues formerly affiliated with these think tanks,
along with the 32 major administration appointees who are former executives
with, consultants for, or significant shareholders of top defense contractors,
are driving U.S. foreign and military policy.

The arms lobby is exerting more influence over policymaking than at any
time since President Dwight D. Eisenhower first warned of the dangers
of the military-industrial complex over 40 years ago.

War Mongers
The theory behind Bush's war posturing towards Iraq can be found in the
administration's September 2002 National Security Strategy. "While the
United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international
community," states the strategy paper, "we will not hesitate to act alone,
if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively
against such terrorists, to prevent them from doing harm against our people
and our country."

This preemption doctrine is now the stated rationale for going to war
against Iraq, despite the fact that Saddam Hussein and Iraq pose no immediate
threat to the United States or its allies.

The preemption doctrine is actually misnamed. Preemption suggests striking
first against a nation that is poised to attack. The Bush doctrine is
much more open-ended, implying that a U.S. attack is justified if a nation
or organization might pose a threat at some unknown future date.

The strategy of "preemptive war" set out in the Bush national security
strategy can be traced to the conservative Project for a New American
Century (PNAC), whose members have pressed this approach for more than
a decade. In the run-up to the 2000 presidential election, PNAC published
a report, "Rebuilding America's Defenses" which has served as a blueprint
for the Bush-Rumsfeld Pentagon military strategy, up to and including
the coining of terms such as "regime change."

PNAC was founded in 1997 and is headed by project directors William
Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, Robert Kagan, senior associate
at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, contributing editor
at the Weekly Standard and columnist for the Washington Post, and Bruce
Jackson, a long-time Lockheed Martin executive who recently left the corporation
to work full time on military policy issues. Its statement of principles
recalls "the Reagan Administration's success" and urges a return to a
"military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges."
PNAC's founding document was signed by Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld and numerous others who have gone on to become major players
in the Bush national security team. Defense contractor Lockheed Martin
recently hired PNAC's deputy director and principal author of the report,
Thomas Donnelly.

Nuclear Weapons: Here to Stay
Two decades ago, President Reagan unveiled his Star Wars scheme with the
intention of rendering nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete."

Today, the word coming from the Pentagon's recently released Nuclear
Posture Review is that nuclear weapons are here to stay. If the recommendations
from the Bush administration's review are carried out, the declared purpose
of U.S. nuclear weapons could change from deterrence and weapon of last
resort to a central, usable component of the U.S. anti-terror arsenal.

The origins of this dramatic shift in U.S. nuclear policy trace to corporate-financed
think tanks like the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP). NIPP's
January 2001 report, "Rationale and Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Forces
and Arms Control," served as a model for the Bush administration's review.
There are a number of parallels in the two reports. Both recommend developing
a new generation of "usable" lower-yield nuclear weapons, expanding the
U.S. nuclear "hit list" and expanding the set of scenarios in which nuclear
weapons may be used.

Three members of the study group which produced the NIPP report are
now in the administration. These include National Security Council members
Stephen Hadley and Robert Joseph and Special Assistant to the Secretary
of Defense Stephen Cambone. NIPP Director Keith Payne -- probably best
known for his infamous 1980 essay on nuclear war, "Victory is Possible"
-- was appointed head of the Pentagon's Deterrence Concepts Advisory Panel,
which will help the Pentagon to implement the Nuclear Posture Review.

NIPP is closely aligned with the nuclear weapons industry. Its advisory
board includes Kathleen Bailey, who spent six years as an analyst at the
Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons laboratory, Charles Kupperman, vice
president for national missile defense programs at Lockheed Martin, and
Robert Barker, a 30-year veteran of Lawrence Livermore weapons lab.

Missile Defense: Ploy or Deploy?
In December, President Bush adopted another of the conservative ideologues
and weapons lobbying groups' top priorities: missile defense system deployment
by 2004.

Bush made the announcement even though the ground-based missile defense
system failed its most recent test, and despite the conclusion of the
December 2001 National Intelligence Estimate.

This paper concluded that "U.S. territory is more likely to be attacked"
with weapons of mass destruction by countries or terrorist groups using
"ships, trucks, airplanes or other means" than by a long-range ballistic
missile. Those delivery systems will evade ballistic missile defenses,
rendering useless the costly proposed investments in Star Wars technology
deployment.

At the forefront of the missile defense lobby is the Center for Security
Policy (CSP), a corporate-financed advocacy group with at least eight
defense executives on its advisory board at any given time. A sixth of
the Center's revenue comes directly from defense corporations.

CSP boasts that no fewer than 22 former advisory board members or close
associates in the Bush administration. CSP alumni in key posts include
its former chair of the board, Douglas Feith, who now serves as undersecretary
of defense for policy, Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim, Defense Policy
Board chair Richard Perle, and longtime friend and financial supporter
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Department of Defense, Inc.
It is not just industry-backed think tanks that have infiltrated the administration.
Former executives, consultants or shareholders of top U.S. defense companies
pervade the Bush national security team.

Lockheed Martin, the nation's largest defense contractor, has more connections
to the Bush administration than any other major defense contractor -- eight
current policy makers had direct or indirect ties to the company before
joining the administration. Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick
Cheney, served on Lockheed's board of directors from 1994 until January
2001, accumulating more than $500,000 in deferred director's fees in the
process. Former Lockheed Chief Operating Officer Peter Teets is now Undersecretary
of the Air Force and Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, a
post that includes making decisions on the acquisition of everything from
reconnaissance satellites to space-based elements of missile defense.

Northrop Grumman, which is now the nation's third largest defense contractor
as a result of its recent acquisition of TRW and Newport News Shipbuilding,
follows closely behind Lockheed with seven former officials, consultants
or shareholders in the Bush administration. Northrop's most important
link is Secretary of the Air Force James Roche, a former company vice
president. The company's influence within the Air Force is reinforced
by the presence of Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations,
Environment and Logistics Nelson Gibbs, who served as corporate comptroller
at Northrop from 1991 to 1999. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz,
Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas
Feith all had consulting contracts or served on paid advisory boards for
Northrop prior to joining the administration.

Other ties include: Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, a former vice
president at General Dynamics, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage,
a former member of Raytheon's board of directors and consultant to Boeing,
and Senior Adviser to the President Karl Rove, who owned between $100,000
and $250,000 in Boeing stock, according to disclosure forms he has filed.

Hogs at the Trough
The overarching concern of the ideologues and the arms industry is to
increase military spending. On this score, they have been tremendously
successful. In its two years in office, the Bush administration has sought
more than $150 billion in new military spending, the vast majority of
which has been approved by Congress with few questions asked. Spending
on national defense is nearing $400 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2003,
up from $329 billion when Bush took office.

In addition to the rapid increases in its yearly budget, Congress has
approved $30 billion in emergency and supplemental spending for the Pentagon
since 9/11. Billions more of supplemental funds have gone to the State
Department for military assistance for allies and nations supporting the
war on terrorism, as well as to the various agencies that have been targeted
for inclusion in the Department of Homeland Defense.

Orders for the new high-tech weapons on display in Afghanistan include
the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, made by Boeing, Raytheon's
Tomahawk missile, and Northrop Grumman's $10 million-a-copy unmanned aerial
vehicle, the Global Hawk. The FY 2003 budget includes approximately $3.2
billion for more of these systems.

And despite talk of "skipping a generation" in weapons procurement for
the past two years, defense contractors will continue to make money off
the weapons of yesterday, too. The FY 2003 budget includes more than $17
billion for Cold War relics that Rumsfeld once said he wanted to abandon.
These weapons include:

The centerpiece of the Bush nuclear doctrine, the "New Triad" of long-range
strike systems, missile defenses and a revitalized nuclear weapons complex,
will involve, during the next five years, at least $33 billion in spending
over and above that projected by the Clinton administration. Missile defense
spending for FY 2003 will exceed $8 billion, while the costs of deploying
a multi-tiered missile defense system could easily reach $200 billion
over the next decade -- providing a steady stream of contracts for Lockheed
Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.

Spending on the related budget category of homeland security has increased
dramatically as well, from $19.5 billion in FY 2001 to $37.7 billion in
FY 2003, providing yet another source of revenue for the big defense contractors.

Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics
have all adapted their marketing strategies and are repackaging their
products for use in domestic security. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin
have received a long-term, multi-billion dollar contract to beef up the
Coast Guard, and General Dynamics has been awarded a $611 million contract
to modernize the service's 30-year-old search-and-rescue communications
system. Boeing is looking into how its sensors designed to track enemy
missiles could be used to locate and identify hijacked planes. Lockheed
is trying to adapt military simulators to train local emergency response
teams. And Raytheon is pitching its hand-held thermal-imaging devices,
designed for the military, as useful for fire fighters searching through
collapsed buildings.

A provision in the Homeland Security Act requires government agencies
to grant 23 percent of their prime contracts to small businesses, and
small companies are excitedly joining the giant corporations in shopping
high-tech proposals to the government.

Among others, Air Structures is introducing fortified vinyl domes for
quarantining infected communities in the aftermath of a potential bioterror
attack, Visionics is looking into designing facial recognition technology
and PointSource Technologies is developing a sensor to detect biological
agents in the air or water.

For now, the military-industrial-think tank complex is on the ascendancy.

Exploiting the fears following 9/11, and impervious to budgetary constraints
imposed on virtually every other form of federal spending, the ideologue-industry
nexus is driving the United States to war in Iraq and a permanently aggressive
war-fighting posture that will simultaneously starve other government
programs and make the world a much more dangerous place.

William Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca are the
Director and Senior Research Associate at the World Policy Institutes
Arms Trade Resource Center.